When mechanics' and similar institutions became established for adults by the middle of the nineteenth century, there was goodwill amongst committee members and volunteers to teach the classes. The institutes were not government-funded and relied on patronage and membership fees to fund them. There was a shortage of teachers for the classes as…

The mechanics' institute movement of the British Isles has been underrated by some historians, who have argued that many of the institutes were attended by the middle and upper classes. In any case, they state that by the 1850s, they were declining in both popularity and usefulness. This paper questions these assumptions, concentrating on the…

This essay examines the formation, operation, and social effects of adult education classes in France during the nineteenth century. These classes were created and operated prior to the formation of France's national education system and were part of the expansion of primary schooling for the working class, or more generally for "the…

The 19 papers in this conference report examine the formative period of the field of adult education, the development of workers' education, and the interrelationships of the two fields. The four papers in Section I, on defining adult education are: "Challenging the System: The Adult Education Movement and the Educational Bureaucracy of the…